Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her … but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead … quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

Forestborn (Forestborn #1)

TO BE BORN OF THE FOREST IS A GIFT AND A CURSE.

Rora is a shifter, as magical as all those born in the wilderness–and as feared. She uses her abilities to spy for the king, traveling under different guises and listening for signs of trouble.

When a magical illness surfaces across the kingdom, Rora uncovers a devastating truth: Finley, the young prince and her best friend, has caught it, too. His only hope is stardust, the rarest of magical elements, found deep in the wilderness where Rora grew up–and to which she swore never to return.

But for her only friend, Rora will face her past and brave the dark, magical wood, journeying with her brother and the obstinate, older prince who insists on coming. Together, they must survive sentient forests and creatures unknown, battling an ever-changing landscape while escaping human pursuers who want them dead. With illness gripping the kingdom and war on the horizon, Finley’s is not the only life that hangs in the balance.
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads. […]

Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1)

When kingdom come, there will be one.

In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.

The last queen standing gets the crown.
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

A Dragonbird in the Fern

When an assassin kills Princess Jiara’s older sister Scilla, her vengeful ghost is doomed to walk their city of glittering canals, tormenting loved ones until the murderer is brought to justice. While the entire kingdom mourns, Scilla’s betrothed arrives and requests that seventeen-year-old Jiara take her sister’s place as his bride to confirm the alliance between their countries.

Marrying the young king intended for her sister and traveling to his distant home is distressing enough, but with dyslexia and years of scholarly struggles, Jiara abandoned any hope of learning other languages long ago. She’s terrified of life in a foreign land where she’ll be unable to communicate.

Then Jiara discovers evidence that her sister’s assassin comes from the king’s own country. If she marries the king, Jiara can hunt the murderer and release her family from Scilla’s ghost, whose thirst for blood mounts every day. To save her family, Jiara must find her sister’s killer . . . before he murders her too.
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

One Tiger One Teen

“We’d put a circus tiger in a horse trailer and when its sedative wore off it turned into a real tiger.” Kip Kellogg’s not kidding.

It’s two weeks before the start of his senior year of high school and releasing a live tiger in the halls was supposed to be the teenager’s ultimate senior class prank.

Things had been going so great, because capturing a live tiger does wonders for a young man’s confidence. His newfound boldness has him skirting around the edges of falling in love with Marie, a girl who on the surface counts as mysterious and exotic because she goes to a different high school, though she does have a few scars on her heart that the new romance may or may not make it past.

But tigers are notoriously uncooperative – and the horse trailer doesn’t hold it for long. The police won’t help; as Dripping Springs Tigers alumni, they think the report of a tiger on the loose in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin is the actual senior prank.

So Kip and his tiger theft conspirators enlist the help of Kip’s grandfather to hunt down – or maybe capture – the tiger. Kip respects the danger of the animal, but something deep inside him knows this tiger should be brought back alive. When the team returns with proof, but not a dead tiger, the news spreads like a bar fight and soon every hunter with a box of ammo is in on the adventure to save Texas from the tiger problem.

Marie joins the action, and good thing because soon it’s down to just the teen couple to capture or destroy the tiger before any of the yahoos get themselves killed.

Kip narrates the tale, but being a typical 17-year-old boy, he leaves out one critical detail in the telling – and his internal and external problems come to a head at the adventure’s climax as Kip tries to handle his life’s first big problem like the man he hopes to become.

One Tiger One Teen is a fun action/adventure and coming of age novel that cuts to the heart of growing better as a person. It will engage teens as a prescriptive tale about how to approach life and will captivate adults as a descriptive journey through those emotions and hopes of self-improvement that are not exclusive to the young.

Fast-paced writing, strong on story and action, with doses of teenage humor and realistic dialogue makes this novel an ideal gift if you’re looking for young adult books for boys who don’t like to read; and its fresh storytelling style will fire up seasoned book lovers who are looking for an exciting, new, young adult fiction voice.
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot #1)

Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers’s delightful new series gives us hope for the future.

It’s been centuries since the robots of Earth gained self-awareness and laid down their tools.
Centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
Centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They’re going to need to ask it a lot.

Becky Chambers’ new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

Curses

Curses is the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ retelling I’ve been waiting for.”–Marissa Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“A unique and twisty magical romp!”–Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author

Merit Cravan refused to fulfill her obligation to marry a prince, leading to a fairy godling’s curse. She will be forced to live as a beast forever, unless she agrees to marry a man of her mother’s choosing before her eighteenth birthday.

Tevin Dumont has always been a pawn in his family’s cons. The prettiest boy in a big family, his job is to tempt naïve rich girls to abandon their engagements, unless their parents agree to pay him off. But after his mother runs afoul of the beast, she decides to trade Tevin for her own freedom.

Now, Tevin and Merit have agreed that he can pay off his mother’s debt by using his con-artist skills to help Merit find the best match . . . but what if the best match is Tevin himself?
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

Darling

A teen girl finds herself lost on a dangerous adventure in this YA thriller by the acclaimed author of The Wicker King and The Weight of the Stars—reimagining Peter Pan for today’s world.

On Wendy Darling’s first night in Chicago, a boy called Peter appears at her window. He’s dizzying, captivating, beautiful—so she agrees to join him for a night on the town.

Wendy thinks they’re heading to a party, but instead they’re soon running in the city’s underground. She makes friends—a punk girl named Tinkerbelle and the lost boys Peter watches over. And she makes enemies—the terrifying Detective Hook, and maybe Peter himself, as his sinister secrets start coming to light. Can Wendy find the courage to survive this night—and make sure everyone else does, too?

Acclaimed author K. Ancrum has re-envisioned Peter Pan with a central twist that will send all your previous memories of J. M. Barrie’s classic permanently off to Neverland.
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

Girls at the Edge of the World

Set in a world on the edge of an apocryphal flood, this heart-stoppingly romantic fantasy debut is perfect for fans of Rachel Hartman and Rae Carson.

In a world bound for an epic flood, only a chosen few are guaranteed safe passage into the new world once the waters recede. The Kostrovian royal court will be saved, of course, along with their guards. But the fate of the court’s Royal Flyers, a lauded fleet of aerial silk performers, is less certain. Hell-bent on survival, Principal Flyer, Natasha Koskinen, will do anything to save the Flyers, who are the only family she’s ever known. Even if “anything” means molding herself into the type of girl who could be courted by Prince Nikolai. But unbeknownst to Natasha, her newest recruit, Ella Neves, is driven less by her desire to survive the floods than her thirst for revenge. And Ella’s mission could put everything Natasha has worked for in peril.

As the oceans rise, so too does an undeniable spark between the two flyers. With the end of the world looming, and dark secrets about the Kostrovian court coming to light, Ella and Natasha can either give in to despair . . . or find a new reason to live.
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]

Bound in Strength (The Mejuarian Series #2)

For god-like creatures named Mejuarian living on planet Ercutis, their world was near perfect. Mejuarian, a cross between an animal and godly beings, have a splendorous village where everyone gets along. They live in a hierarchical society, and everyone loves their king and queen. A near utopian life that allows all Mejuarian to rise to their most extraordinary levels of consciousness. That is until they discover using systems much like our own, an asteroid is on course to decimate their village and erase their long history. Short notice, they plan to move all inhabitants, along with those bound to them by their magical powers, to the other side of their planet and reside in the lands of their longtime ally and trade partners, the Dragonors.Very upsetting to many Mejuarian mothers and fathers having mewlings is that their ancient tradition of birthing nests on an ancestral altar would be away from their homes. However, all seems to go as planned, and they depart with all twelve ships successfully. One ship dedicated to moving the birth alter intact with nests placed on it trails the fleet. Unfortunately, the Mejuar scientist’s slight miscalculation allowed for the meteor’s early arrival. A shockwave forces the underpowered, overloaded ship carrying the nests to crash land. Before its descent, a piece of the broken altar is dragged into space, and two of its occupantsOn earth, a family torn with grief after the loss or their mother tries to enjoy a day of convalescing by a local lake. Hubert, the local veterinarian with his two children Ren a teen, and Brooklyn, his baby sister, are exploring after a picnic lunch. Ren discovers the charred nests and is curious as to what they are. Hubert also becomes interested in the unusual possible chrysalids. The inquisitive vet takes the nests back to his facility and uses the extent of written and photo journals available to him in 1960. He is unable to identify them and ponders, what are they?
-Excerpt taken from Goodreads […]